Holiday mailing tips - Poor Packaging makes dead letters out of many gifts

Be Careful What You Send 
& How You Send It!!!
___________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

Holiday mailing tips

• Print addresses clearly and in capital letters.
• Include "to" and "from" information on packages — only on one side.
• Mark packages that contain breakable material with "Fragile," in large print.
• Never guess at a ZIP code. No ZIP code is better than a wrong ZIP code.
• Select a box strong enough to protect the contents.
• Cushion contents with shredded or rolled newspaper, bubble wrap or foam peanuts. Plain air-popped popcorn is also good for cushioning. Pack contents tightly to avoid shifting during transit.
• Always use tape that is designed for shipping. Do not use wrapping paper, string, masking tape or cellophane tape.
• Place an extra label with delivery and return address inside package.
• Remove batteries from toys. Wrap separately.
• Stuff glass and fragile hollow items, like vases, with newspaper or packing material to avoid damage. When mailing framed ph

______________________________________________________

The employees at the U.S. Postal Service's mail recovery center in Atlanta put up a Christmas tree every year. But it's not the tree you want your gifts to go beneath.

Christmas is the busiest time at the recovery center - or dead letter office, as postal service employees commonly refer to it.

Items end up there when they can neither be delivered nor returned because the recipient's and return addresses are missing, incorrect or illegible.

Dead letter center employees open thousands of Christmas packages and cards each year - many containing cash - in an effort to deliver misrouted mail to the proper address.

Many of those items make a stop in St. Louis on their way to Atlanta at the mail-sorting center at 1720 Market Street.
At Christmas time, poor packaging makes dead letters out of many gifts.

Another common problem: Metal items, such as car keys and jewelry, sent in regular envelopes.

After the sorting machine spits the contents out, they end up at what postal employees call the "loose-in-the-mail" section of the downtown facility.

Lambert and other employees will try to determine where mail is meant to go before they forward it to Atlanta. Sometimes, they have enough clues - a few numbers, part of a name, an Express Mail stamp - to properly dispatch the item.

Lambert is not allowed to open such packages to look for clues; first class mail is considered sealed against opening. Only employees at the dead letter office, or police officers with a search warrant, can open them.

However, a dead letter package does not always have to be opened to determine its contents.

Fish sent from China, for instance, is one of the more common items that ends up misrouted.
. Click Here for more info.

__________________________________________________________________________________ Reciprocal links:
http://HermannHearsay.blogspot.com/(Hermann Area News, Commentary & Discussion)